The Constitutional Court of the Ecuador declared that the state of emergency declared by the president Daniel Noboa on January 8 is effectively constitutional. The same applies to measures taken during the state of emergency, which include the mobilization of the Police and the Armed forces within the national territory as well as inside penitentiary centers.
In the same statement, the Court ruled that the Armed Forces can mobilize within the country even after the end of the state of emergency considering that “it is one of their ordinary powers.” In the same message, the organization also states that the existence of an “internal armed conflict” does not depend on the public authorities, but is “a matter of fact.”
At the beginning of January, President Noboa declared a state of emergency in the national territory to confront the violence of various criminal groups. Among the measures adopted are the suspension of several rights such as the inviolability of home and correspondence, as well as the limitation of freedom of movement.
The state of “internal armed conflict” was declared by the Executive on January 9 through a decree that designated 22 drug trafficking gangs as terrorist groups operating within the national territory.
The scope of the capabilities of the Armed Forces in the national territory and penitentiary centers has been the subject of notable debate in recent years. In 2021, the Constitutional Court ruled that the army can only intervene in public order under extraordinary circumstances. This led to friction with the then president Guillermo Lasso, who stated that the Court’s resolutions did not allow the Executive to take appropriate measures to deal with the prison crisis that the country was experiencing. In November of that year, the organization rejected the president’s comments in a statement and accused him of “evading his own responsibilities.”
The Armed Forces have carried out more than one hundred thousand military operations in the national territory since the beginning of the state of emergency on January 8. (I)
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